[X360] Velvet Assassin

June 12, 2008 - Of all the game names in all the land, Velvet Assassin is one of the most bizarre I've heard. Formerly known as Sabotage, the folks at Gamecock decided to change the name upon hearing that Pandemic's stealth-action game was going by the name of Saboteur. In fear of destroying the minds of consumers everywhere, they settled on Velvet Assassin. While you do play a stealthy killer, your name isn't Velvet, nor do you dawn any velvety garb. At least not in the level that I was shown during the demo.

There was one portion of Velvet Assassin, however, where the soft and silky substance worn by so many pimps the world over made its way into the gameplay. As anyone who has been following our coverage knows, Velvet Assassin is similar to Splinter Cell in several ways. First, you won't be running in guns blazing. Velvet is all about going the stealthy route, sneaking up behind your prey and then using one of the more than 50 execution moves on them. While there are gun fights, just like in Splinter Cell, you won't (or at least, you shouldn't) find yourself up against insurmountable odds while ducking behind pieces of cover and blindfiring over it. Any baddies that you manage to bag will need to be dragged into the darkness to remain unseen.

Is too sexy!

It's in that darkness where you'll see the one and only sign of velvet. When shrouded in shadows and unseen by the enemy, both your character, Violette Summer, and her health bar are surrounded by a purple film of some sort. What does it resemble? Velvet, of course! When you're in the light the film disappears and you see a standard player model. Hey, they had to work the whole velvet thing in there somewhere, right?

So why is Violette being so stealthy? Well, it's World War II and our heroine is in some sort of coma. At this point we don't know why she's in a coma or why there are armed guards in her room watching over her hospital bed in a slightly menacing way. The level I was shown, the second in the game, takes place in a WWII ghetto. It's essentially a holding ground for prisoners before shipping them off to a prisoner of war camp. Violette makes her way through the ghetto, knifing bad guys along the way and trying to stay out of sight.

I know what you're all thinking, "Wait, didn't you say that Violette is in a coma?" Well, yes, she is. Velvet Assassin takes the classic route of delivering the in-game action in a flashback while the cut-scenes are present-time, at least the ones that I was shown.

There were a few moments during the level when guards were alerted to her presence. Luckily Velvet Assassin has a sort of escape mechanic built in. Throughout the game world there are syringes filled with the glorious drug known as morphine. If Violette should find herself in trouble all she needs to do is inject herself with morphine and time around her will stop. Not only that, but her military garb is replaced by her hospital night gown and she's set free to either escape her assailants or kill them. Be warned: killing a single person while time is stopped (or taking too long to escape) unfreezes the rest of the world around Violette.

Our shrouded heroine.

Deepening the experience beyond the standard game of hide-and-seek is an experience point system. Violette can earn XP by collecting treasure that she'll find on the field of battle and those points can then be assigned to five different attributes. There's strength, morphine, stamina, stealth and firearms and as you build up each new abilities will be unlocked. For instance, say you level up your firearm ability to level three. Well, that will bag you the ability to hold your breath while sniping. You can also unlock new execution animations through the XP system to ensure that the animations stay fresh as the game progresses. The most gut-wrenching execution that I was shown featured Violette starting behind her prey, stabbing through his crotch sending him to his knees, then gouging out his jugular. Lovely, I know.

Visually the alpha build of Velvet Assassin that I was shown clearly needed some fine tuning before hitting the streets. While the world had nicely bump mapped surfaces and some cool effects, the framerate stuttered at every turn. The animations still looked solid and stayed reasonably varied for being in such an early version of the game. If they can bring the visuals up to the level of the interesting storyline then maybe Velvet Assassin will turn a few heads when it ships late in 2008.